AS SKIPPER MS Dhoni turned on his pyrotechnics show for India in the first Test, not so much dismantling the bowlers as brutalising them, it was only natural to shine a forensic torch on Australia's attack.

The myopic view was to say Australia were foolish for playing four pacemen on a Chennai deck so red and dusty yesterday it looked as if James Pattinson was bowling on Mars.

It would be easier still to sharpen the focus on Nathan Lyon, who seems to be interminably in the firing line even when he dismisses blokes with surnames Kohli and Tendulkar.

The problem is not necessarily the deployment of four quicks. Nor should critics point the finger at Lyon. The core issue is a flawed wider selection methodology - and how it robbed the touring party of Australia's best-performed domestic spinner this summer.

Steve O'Keefe's snubbing is one for the Bermuda Triangle files. The NSW skipper's omission was bizarre.

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Already, four days into this four-Test series, Australia are paying a price. And while O'Keefe, a left-arm finger-spinner, may not have routed the Indians, his availability would have given the tourists something they desperately craved when Dhoni teed-off like Tiger Woods on Sunday.

Options . . . and balance.

Statistics can sometimes paint a distorted picture in sport, particularly in the data-rabid game that is cricket, but in the case of O'Keefe his numbers are not only emphatic but indisputable.

His selection for India should have been a no-brainer.

Consider this: O'Keefe has taken 17 wickets in the Sheffield Shield this summer, the same number as Lyon, Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell and Xavier Doherty - the four spinners in India - combined.

Collectively, Lyon, Smith, Maxwell and Doherty's 17 Shield wickets have come at a costly 53.47. Their economy rate is 3.47 runs per over.

O'Keefe's equivalent haul came at 26.76. His economy rate is 2.20.

In other words, O'Keefe not only picks up wickets as frequently and twice as cheaply, but his ability to stem the flow of runs, so crucial in Indian conditions, is superior.

Despite his costly figures in Chennai, Lyon was by no means terrible. He got some balls to jump and his delivery which clean-bowled Tendulkar was a gem.

He could have benefited working in tandem with O'Keefe, whose left-armers would have given Australia different angles and variations.

There's more. Seven days before the squad for India was named, the tweaker returned match figures of 8-102 against Western Australia. That's one more wicket than Lyon managed in five games for the Redbacks this summer.

Even on a like-for-like basis, comparing O'Keefe strictly to his left-arm orthodox rival Doherty, there is no contest.

Doherty has taken two Shield wickets this summer at 80. His first-class average spanning a decade is 44.56.

O'Keefe averages 27.87 from 28 first-class games and, at 28, is two years younger than Doherty, who has performed best in the one-day arena, a format Australia will not play on this tour.

Granted, 'SOK' has yet to play Test cricket, but surely, like Doherty, Jason Krejza and Michael Beer, it is worth finding out if he has the goods.

Is there a deeper issue? Perhaps. The street-corner whisper is that O'Keefe is out of favour with some heavy hitters in Australian cricket. Ask Brad Hodge or Chris Rogers about the pitfalls of being Mr Unpopular at the selection table.

But if form is one barometer, O'Keefe ticked the box. If Sheffield Shield success is another, O'Keefe had to be on a plane to India.

That's not to say Australia erred completely by choosing four quicks in Chennai.

The selectors deserve credit for bravely backing James Pattinson, who was returning from injury, because history shows pace can prevail on the sub-continent.

The only two Australian teams to have won a Test series in India in the past 53 years took more than 50 per cent of their wickets utilising quicks.

In 2004, Adam Gilchrist's fast men claimed 43 of Australia's 68 wickets. In 1969, Bill Lawry relied on his speedsters to take 45 of 86 wickets in a 3-1 rout.

On the eve of this Test, Australian hierarchy said they opted for four quicks to play to their strengths. By not selecting O'Keefe to tour in the first place, they ostensibly narrowed their options before a ball was bowled.

The general belief is that Australia didn't have the requisite quality or depth to justify playing two spinners in Chennai.

They did. The problem is they left one at home.

COME IN SPINNER

How Australia's leading tweakers have fared in this summer's Sheffield Shield.

Watch all the wickets from day four of the first Test between India and Australia.

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